"Austin Bomber"
Recipient of the BEST SPOT NEWS BY A TELEVISION STATION award in The Charles E. Green Awards (2018)
KVUE-TV, Austin
Judge’s Comments:
Unfortunately, the best opportunities for breaking, spot news are often sad stories such as the Austin Bomber. These circumstances give local television newsrooms the chance to get on the air with what viewers need to know right now and then stay on the air with information that continues to come in to the newsroom. Two things in particular stand out in KVUE’s coverage:
1. Reporter Tony Plohetski’s ability to work sources, get conformation from multiple sources and then report it on the fly during the morning newscasts. This not only gave the viewers the latest details of the breaking story, but it also gave the viewers a chance to see how journalism works. Good reporting isn’t just repeating, it’s confirming.
2. Cutting to live coverage on multiple occasions. This requires a lot of skill on the part of newsroom management. Sending crews to where the news might be (police chief, bombing scene, witnesses, bomber’s home) shows forethought. Being able to take live pictures in a timely manner is the work of producers who are at the top of their game.
Overall, solid coverage of an important story that happened in several places over several hours.
Simon Perez
Associate Professor
Broadcast and Digital Journalism Department
S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications
Syracuse University
Judge’s Bio:
Award-winning bilingual reporter Simon Perez is a 20-year news industry veteran. His professional experience includes work in television (KPIX CBS 5 in San Francisco; WRIC ABC 8 in Richmond, Virginia.; WGXA Fox 24 in Macon, Georgia.; and Canal de Noticias, NBC NewsChannel in Charlotte, North Carolina), newspaper (ABC Prensa Española in Madrid, Spain; Daily News-Record in Harrisonburg, Virginia.; and Danville Register & Bee in Danville, Virginia) and magazine (Macworld/España in Madrid, Spain). He also served as a reporter for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games in 1996.
He is a recipient of 2007 and 2008 Northern California Emmy Awards for best evening and daytime newscasts and attended the Knight Digital Media Center’s Multimedia Reporting and Convergence Workshop at the University of California at Berkeley.
To watch KVUE-TV coverage of “Austin Bomber,” visit the link below: